The Dalmore 14 Year Old 1996 Single Cask (3 cl MoM* mini)

[This is one Master of Malt sent us just to get us to review it for them (see our Disclaimer here). Our thanks to Natalie and Master of Malt for the sample.]

Tasting notes:On the nose, there’s freshly soaked barley left to malt in a Highland field that was already overgrown with switchgrass. There’s also a sweetness, like a silo full of corn heated slowly to coax the sugars out without popping a kernel. Some citrus notes come out on the palate, but then you realize they’re really notes of raw sugar cane. Lest you think that this expression is a biofuel wetdram, however, there’s old tech here, too: the mouth holds brininess that acts like a salt-bridge separator, allowing the free flow of ions, but not water molecules, and resulting in a serious drying effect. And in the spirit of a good biofuel, the mouthfeel is decidedly free of oiliness or any other hints of fossil fuel action. The finish brings vanilla and spice, but they’re both faint and slightly synthetic in character, like a Vanilla Spice Little Tree™ car air freshener that’s been hanging from the rearview mirror of a Prius for three years. At 55.5% abv, this dram could serve as a high test biofuel all by its lonesome. And if you put this in your flex fuel car, it’d smell a whole hell of a lot better than french fries.

Rating:

–On the scale of promising renewable energy sources–The Dalmore 14 Year Old 1996 MoM Single Cask is landfill gas or “biogas”–While this is as viable a source for energy as any we have available to us, let’s face it: it’s just not nearly as sexy as solar.